Bulgaria`s Second City Fights Surrender to Muslims

Warning

Oops! Please log in to use this feature.

Last Friday, two thousand residents of Plovdiv took to the streets to object to authorities returning a mosque to Muslim control in the person of the Grand Mufti. According to Reuters, “nationalists and soccer fans” attacked the building and 120 were arrested. News reports made the protesters sound like a bunch of hooligans (another word used by media).

Interestingly, a video of the event shows an orderly march of men and women of all ages, with flags, signs and patriotic symbols. After arrival at the mosque, behavior gets louder and more agitated.

Bulgaria may be poor and rough around the edges, but its people know for sure they don’t want a return of the Muslim jackboot. And wherever Muslims relocate, Islamic demands inevitably follow.

The current mosque business is seen as a stealth move by Islamists to mooch themselves back into Bulgaria. The transfer of the mosque to the Mufti follows his legal finagling, as explained in the Ottawa Citizen:

[. . .] But it’s not just the future of one mosque that’s at issue. The Grand Mufti has lodged more than two dozen claims to properties lost to the Muslim community a century ago following the expulsion of the last Ottoman Turk overlords from the country in the late 19th century.

According to the online outlet The Sofia Globe, the court applications follow amendments to the country’s Religious Denominations Act, which allow such applications by officially recognized religious groups. (According to a 2011 census, about eight per cent of Bulgaria’s 7.3 million people are Muslim.)

The Mufti’s claims have sparked a series of often violent demonstrations, of which the one late last week in Koslovo was only the latest. Opposition to the Grand Mufti’s claims is particularly strong in Karlova. The town is the birthplace of Vassil Levski, a Bulgarian national hero — he’s been dubbed the Apostle of Freedom — who in the late 1800s led a revolutionary movement to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman tyranny. [. . .]

Following is a video of the rowdy bits of the Feb 14 protest, with translations of what the protesters are yelling, starting at around one minute in. Gates Of Vienna has a transcript of what was said, things like:

Crowd sings “Courage, fellows in battle, loyal, united, we are no longer obedient ‘raya’ (synonym for dhimmi)” (these are verses from a song from the anti-Turkish rebellions in the 19th century)

Lady on loudspeaker: “…Women of Bulgaria! We are here to say: in Bulgaria the howling of the “muezzin” will never drown out the toll of the (church) bells!”

Voices in the crowd: “Turkey out of Bulgaria! Down with Turkey, this is Bulgaria!”

It’s regrettable that property damage occurred in the Plovdiv activities, but authorities often don’t pay attention to reasoned debate from citizens. The Bulgarians are insisting they are unwilling to return to slavery under Islam.